Welcome to Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC! (Previously known as Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy LLC). Our mission is to make original theme based materials that are both useful and fun! We strive to make every single therapy session interactive, enjoyable, and very beneficial! We love being speech therapists and enjoy knowing that our students want to come back each and every week!

It was fun to play with the farm sets as we targeted each students individual goals. For example, we asked, "What is this?" or said, "Say horse with your good /s/ sound". We also worked on turn taking, counting, and farm animal naming as we built towers with farm themed blocks. It's awesome to watch them fall down! We also used the fun sound cube to elicit farm sound animals and names while problem solving through the puzzle of matching the front and back of animals. One of our favorite farm books was read a lot this week too. It is called, Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton (she writes the cutest books). We often found ourselves getting up and conducting our own hoedowns in the therapy room while reading it! It was so much fun! It really is one of the best books ever!

The animal farm train track was a big hit with our train lovers and was very motivating to put together for them as they answered and completed their speech and language goals. The magnetic farm set was a blast to use for making individual farm scenes while the animals naming and prepositions were worked on. We gave instructions like, "Put the cow under the barn", and "The pig goes in the mud". We also targeted literacy targets by asking questions like, "What letter does dog end with? What rhymes with moo? In addition, the felt board was used while verbal expression was encouraged with the song of, "Old MacDonald". Of course all of the cute animal puzzles had to be pulled out this week too. They are always fun and challenging for the little ones to complete!

Stampers were used to make a farm scene. Vocabulary, articulation and verbal expression goals were targeted with animal word lists. Numerous farm animal worksheets were used to target articulation and language concepts. The farm dotter pages were used with farm animal stamps this week as articulation and language goals were discussed.

We targeted rhymes and language concepts using pages from our Spying Rhymes on the Farm packet that includes a ton of super cute farm themed clip art and a wide variety of worksheets, games, and activities that help to advance rhyming skills for the Pre-k to 2nd grade population. It even has fun farm themed rhyming stories, nursery rhymes and "I Spy" worksheets! Sticker scenes were completed targeting articulation, direction following, prepositions naming and identification goals. Farm stickers were added to each students sticker/prize pages and tattoos were given or put on! It was a fun and productive time in the speech farm room!

Sentence Ninja is an app that was designed to improve sentence structure skills in children and adults. It was designed and authored by two certified speech-language pathologists. Author: Susan Rose Simms, MA, CCC-SLP, and Designer: Barbara Fernandes, MS, CCC-SLP. That's a good thing, because in case you didn't know, speech-language pathologists have black belts in the ability to understand and teach correct phrase and sentence structures. They are your local language specialists and have a wealth of understanding in the components of language such as; helping students better understand word meanings, how to put words together to make complete sentences, and with knowing how to teach word combinations that fit specific speaking situations.

Sentence Ninja is a very comprehensive app that can be used with multiple students working on different levels, but overall, it is quite easy to understand and to navigate through. Let us show you!. First of all, be aware of Smarty Ears wonderful support page that is shown early on. It is from here that you can choose to back up to iTunes, restore from iTunes, see more apps, contact Smarty Ears, go to Facebook, and learn more about Sentence Ninja by reading about it and by watching the video tutorial. One can also choose to turn the cool Ninja style music on and off from this page too.

Next step: Chose among 39 difficulty levels from six groups that range from simple two-word phrases to complex sentences. Wow! Such a large variety of targeted working areas to choose from! A student will for sure increase their understanding of grammar rules and sentence order and structure by working through this app!

GROUP 1 Phrases: Levels 1-6

GROUP 2 Sentences: Levels 7-21

GROUP 3 Question Format: Levels 22-27

GROUP 4: Negation: Levels 28-29

GROUP 5: Advanced Sentences Levels 30-38

GROUP 6: Complex Sentences Level 39

Press save and go! This is when you will see the Ninja walking across stepping stones at the top of the screen and the words and punctuation that need to go together all sliced in different directions in the middle of the screen. The player will then want to drag the words in order to the sentence strip at the bottom of the page. If the student gets the sentence correct they can go on to the next karate chopped sentence problem, and if they get the sentence order incorrect they will simply return to their previous position on the picture. The data is collected and can be obtained later by simply tapping on the done button. That will bring you to The Therapy Report Center. We love the data that is collected inside the Therapy Report Center. It is super helpful when we need to know our student's percentages of understanding for individual goals. That kind of data is a goldmine of information for when we need to write our progress note and re-evaluations.

A super fun reinforcer is the fact that the students get to earn award belts as they complete each group of levels beginning with simplicity at the Subject and Verb level and work your way toward complex sentences that include Subject + past tense verb + prep phrase + verb + and + verb phrase. Once earned, they are displayed here on the belt Dojo page. Very motivating!

Here you see the wonderful homework sheet page. The homework sheets are arranged by group and difficulty level so a worksheet can be chosen that is exactly at the level that the student is on. I love this option! It's great to give a homework sheet to the students to take home. Not only does it help to reinforce lessons learned, but the parents can then see exactly what was worked on during the therapy session and we know that parents appreciate that very much. Smarty Ears is offering free homework sheet examples right now on-line. Click here to get your FREEBIES!

So you can see that Smarty Ears has done it again! They have created another awesome app that can be used with more than one student at one time and they don't even need to be working at the same sentence level!

This app is amazing because there are SO MANY different goal levels to choose from and because it is also features a large amount of support prompts. It also offers a wide variety of customization features such as; auto progression, first word lower case vs. upper case, color coded cues, reward auto, and spoken instructions (to name a few). All of the customization options can make this app just perfect for each and everyone of your students. In addition, we especially love the fun Ninja theme, the colorful pictures, the pleasant narration voice, the large variety of targeted goal areas, and the simple fact that this app targets an important language and grammar area of sentence structure that we haven't seen too much in other apps. If a student learns to put sentences in the correct order down, then they will also increase their ability to say sentences correctly out loud. The student will in return increase their overall receptive and expressive language skills and that will help them to improve their functional communication skills. Very awesome! As that is the ultimate goal for many of our language delayed students. Enjoy the app and please take the time to watch the cool promotional video below to gain an even better understanding of it.

Sincerely,

Manda & Shanda, SLP's

Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUDgkvFtL64* A copy of the Sentence Ninja App was provided to Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy by Smarty Ears. No other compensation was received. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

*Are you needing some useful and seasonal materials for your therapy room, classroom or kitchen table? If so, please see what we have available by reading this post! We have documents specific to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Autumn, and two are FREEBIES!! And that's no GOBBLEDYGOOK! Sincerely, Manda & Shanda, SLP'sTwin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC

A Bountiful Pre-K Speech, Language and Literacy Unit!A Bountiful Pre-K Thanksgiving at Teachers Pay TeachersA Bountiful Pre-K Thanksgiving at Teachers NotebookThis is a Pre-K level speech, language & literacy Thanksgiving themed unit. It is 118 pages of all that you would ever need for teaching your preschooler in therapy and in the classroom this coming Thanksgiving. Your sessions will be fun and the lessons learned will be bountiful! This is wonderful fall themed game that can be used with a wide variety of students! Fall into a fun fall season by having a terrific time reading or saying the words on the "L", "V", "S" and 4 Syllable word cards that are included in this purchase! Inside you will find two pages for each targeted sound position of initial, medial or final. You will also be provided with three pages of 4 syllable words. FREEBIE! Pre- K Autumn Time Concepts

We hope that you enjoy this freebie document using fun fall themed clip art. It is a wonderful autumn time concept packet that would be perfect for use with many Pre-K students! What you will find inside this free concept packet:
1) What’s Different?
2) What Shapes Do You See?
3) Smallest to Biggest
4) Boy or Girl?
5) Count the Pumpkins
6) Name the Letter
7) Name the Autumn Object
8) Name the Color

*Currently on sale! This is a Pre-k level speech and language Halloween themed unit. It is 100 pages of all that you would ever need for teaching your preschooler in therapy and in the classroom this coming Halloween. Your sessions will be super spooktacular!

This is a Pre-K level speech, language & literacy Thanksgiving themed unit. It is 118 pages of all that you would ever need for teaching your preschooler in therapy and in the classroom this coming Thanksgiving. Your sessions will be fun and the lessons learned will be bountiful! What's included in this cute and colorful comprehensive unit?Receptive & Expressive Language:A Fall themed language game with 20 question cards that encourage the use of adjectives, the answering of questions, following 2 and 3- step directions, and vocabulary development.Fun stuff: Door signs, Thanksgiving themed reinforcer pages, games, mazes, Thanksgiving themed coloring and lacing pages.Concepts:A large variety of concept worksheets targeting sizes, numbers, and location. Early literacy:A fun letter bag activity to spell the word "turkey", worksheets to work on identifying the first and last letter in Thanksgiving themed words, and several other letter and word reading worksheets. Numbers:Counting pages, number identification match and doter pages.Grammar: Preposition cards and worksheets. A large variety of pronoun worksheets and therapy cards. An exercise that asks the student to read or listen to several sentences and to have them identify the grammatically correct sentences vs. ones that are full of gobbledygook (grammar errors). Writing:Letter and word trace to copy pages. Some words targeted include: Pilgrim, corn, pumpkin, turkey, and potatoes. Articulation: TH themed seek-n-finds,memory match card games, and worksheets for the initial, medial, and final position /th/ words. Initial B, C, P, CH, M, TH, F, T, S glue the items on the Thanksgiving table cut and glue activity. (Appropriate for first letter literacy and/or articulation work). Verbal Expression:Word, phrase and sentence repetition cards and activities.Bonus for those who want quick sheets that save on printer ink:21 of our popular black and white worksheets targeting a variety of concepts, colors, grammar and literacy areas!!This unit has all that you would ever need this coming November, and that's NO GOBBLEDYGOOK! :)Please download the previews at our TpT and TN stores for the complete contents so that you can have a very good idea of all of the activities included in this unit before your purchase. We wish you all a happy and bountiful Thanksgiving! We sure are thankful for you all- our wonderful followers!Sincerely,Manda & Shanda, SLP's*Now for your free sample pages. Right click and save pictures to your computer, then print.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Hello and welcome to our post about the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet themed speech, language, and literacy sessions that we completed last week. Our speech therapy students had a lot of fun completing all of the activities during this themed week and we just know that all of them went away from the sessions with an increased alphabet understanding! It was a fun and productive week, so we decided to share our activities with you all. Our hope is that a new idea may pop out for a teacher or therapist to use during their next therapy or classroom session, or that a busy parent may identify a new fun and easy literacy based activity to do at home with their own children.The students began their Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet Themed sessions at our door. The book was introduced and an explanation was made that the book has a coconut tree in it. They could see a picture of a real coconut tree with someone climbing it. Did you know that coconut trees can grow up to 90 feet long? That's three buses lined up in a row! :) The student were asked a yes/no question which they could mark on the survey. Would you like to climb a coconut tree? At the end of our week the answer "yes" prevailed. We found out that we have many brave students!

In the hallway the students matched and named letters. We used the beach ball to play catch as we said the entire alphabet back and forth. For older students working on more advanced literacy goals, we asked them to name or spell a word that began with a letter for each turn. The speech door also had a letter scavenger hunt. We had letters hidden throughout the speech room which they could go find and then attempt to put in the correct missing spot.

We listened to the story next! The kids followed along as it was read to them. The main narrator of the version I have is Ray Charles. Also, on the disc it is read by children and it has several songs on it. I would pause the reading of it to ask them /wh/ questions, have them point and name letters, and ask for what rhyme they heard.

Crafts are so much fun! The students loved to make the coconut trees. We used pom poms for the coconuts and alphabet stickers. We made bracelets after finding letters for their name. We also made these neat big posters that are called "It's All About My ABC's". They glued on letters and pictures for each space and for older students we had them write in words. So many literacy and language targets were utilized with these posters.i.e. What starts with letter ___?, Following directions, naming, spelling along with development of fine motor skills with cutting and writing.

The students really enjoyed making and naming letter sounds by using our Speech Sounds Play Dough Mats. We actually used modeling clay to form the letters for this activity. Articulation and literacy practice is a blast using play dough and clay!

More alphabet fun! We played hangman to answer questions and to figure out the word and/or phrase! Alpha Catch was a hit to keep us moving. We would throw a ball and name the letter on it. For articulation students we practiced saying a target word before throwing. A fun Ipad game we played was Maze-A-Licious ABC!

We ended the session with an alphabet and coconut treat! The Alpha Bits were poured on their plates and the student were encouraged to look for letters in their names as they ate them. Also (and after double checking on allergies) the student was able to try coconut! They could try it by itself, in a cookie and/or in a candy bar. We received many "YUMS"!

Thanks so much for taking the tour of our alphabet themed sessions with us!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Hello! Several awesome sellers are brewing up a spooky sale for you over at Teachers pay Teachers this coming Sunday and Monday. The planned Speechie Sale will include several sellers who are offering their documents on sale from the 10% to 20% off percentage. This sale will simply be SPOOKTACULAR!!!

The sale also includes us! We are putting every single document in our store on sale for 20% off. That includes our hot selling Halloween Pre-k document called, "A Spooktacular Pre-K Halloween Speech & Language Themed Unit" that is filled with over 100 pages of speech, language, and literacy games, worksheets, and activities! So, come on over and take things off of your wishlist and pick up some terrific speech, language or literacy documents this coming Oct 13th or Oct 14.

Another awesome thing is that TpT is offering an additional 10% off until October 14th. Wow!! Just enter the code FB100K and you can get more of a discount! Wowzers!! That's 30% off of your orders. That's a tremendous deal and we hope that you can take advantage of it.

Click on the picture or the TPT Store links below to visit our Teachers pay Teachers store and pick up your copy during the sale!

Friday, October 11, 2013

Hello! Do you have an app wish list? If so, would an app on your wish list be one that could help to collect articulation information that would assist you with the determination process of the presence of an articulation disorder or phonological disorder? How about an app that would measure treatment efficacy and that would help you with determining follow up therapy plans for your students? What if that same app that you were wishing for could also be given quickly and not take up a whole hour of your limited treatment and screening times? If so, maybe we have found the perfect app to fulfill your wish list desires! Please read on to find out more about the Smarty Ears app called, "Sunny Articulation Phonology Test".

Wishing you all a SUNNY and beautiful day!

* The Sunny Articulation Phonology Test is a screening and assessment tool created by Smarty Ears that can be used to identify errors and phonological difficulties. It sells for 49.99 in the I Tunes Store. More information on it can be found at the Smarty Ears Website.

When you open up the app you will see this page. Click on the "Info" page on the top left. The information button has the following tabs: Facebook, Video Tutorial, Manual, More SLP Apps and Contact Us.

Time to add a new student. The button is in the lower left corner. Add the students name and birth date and indicate if English is the child's first language or not.

Now it is time to choose if you would like to complete the full evaluation or if you would like the screening option. The difference between the two is that in the full assessment you can select specific errors that the student may have made and show specifically what they were i.e. if they substituted a sound you can click on what specific sound was used.

Click on the button above the picture. The word is phonetically transcribed above it. There are options to record responses,and to take notes. There is also a rotate feature. If you are seated across from the student you can rotate the word so it can be facing you.

There is an option to turn off or leave on the verbal reinforcer that can be heard after each picture is presented. Also at this screen you are able to see each students progress. If the status is incomplete you can click on their designated box and it will send you right were you left off the last time.

This is an example picture from the evaluation option. The word is rotated toward the SLP. The student made an error on the /s/ sound. A box appears which has you choose what kind of error was made.

The error was a substitution so another box appears which has you choose which sound was substituted for the /s/.

At the end of the screening and/or evaluation there is subjective measure for choosing the students overall intelligibility rate percentage. This information will be included in the report that is compiled at the end of administration.

When you click on the completed assessment several options are available which reveal specifics on the students results. Clicking on the tabs of position, manner, voicing, words, place and error gives you very detailed results of each.

A report is compiled with all the results. It can be emailed right from your Ipad. Also you can print it off or send to review notes. This report is very detailed. Also at the enf of the assessment you can review all notes taken and all recordings that were made.

Here is the video tutorial from Smarty Ears if your more of a visual learner:)

Video Tutorial:

Some great features of this app:

- Can be used as a screener or as an assessment. It is complimentary addition to other standardized testing measures.

-Can help the therapist determine current articulation and phonological status which can be used to help determine therapy goals.

-Fairly quick to administer and includes all phonemes in the initial, medial and final positions of words. The full assessment took me about 15 minutes to administer.

-Nice and convenient features such as the ability to track a students progress, email results, automatic analysis of sound errors, immediate feedback feature, recording option and note taking options during administration.

- It generates a very thorough report which can be printed and emailed.-It provides a detailed analysis of all errors that occurred.-Less cumbersome since you only need your Ipad.

Considerations:

-This tool does not give standardized measures. It can be used for supplemental information gathering, but not if a standardized score is needed for evaluations.- The evaluation begins with a picture of a snake and also has a picture of a hatchet in the middle. These pictures were a bit too scary for our little ones. Also, there was musician which was difficult word for many of our younger students to produce.

- The immediate audible feedback was distracting to the students. This feature can be turned off though. That is a nice option and we just wished that we had discovered the option before we began the screening prodcedures.

-The report that is generated gives a lot of information. The information is very interesting to the SLP but we would suspect that it would be a bit overwhelming for a parent.We saw some big eyes when handing over the reports, but a quick review of highlights can help deter this big eye response. LOL! Thank you very much Smarty Ears for the opportunity to review yet another one of your fabulous apps!! We feel privileged to be able to add this wonderful new app to our library of articulation related items. It will be a great addition to our articulation assessments and re-checks! Sincerely,Shanda and Manda,SLP'sTwin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy

* A copy of the Sunny Articulation Phonology Test App was provided to Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy by Smarty Ears. No other compensation was received. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.